Mea Culpa
by Danny Barefoot
Summary: One-shot. A dying old lady forces Triela to think about God, her relationship with Hilshire, and things that need to be said.
1. His problem

Her shotgun jumped in Triela's arms. As the gunman collapsed beneath the window, rays shone above his lolling head. Triela quickly looked back down the hall, and spoke into her radio.

"Last one down, Hilshire. Checking for the hostage."

"She's here. They ditched her on the apartment block's second floor," Triela tensed at Hilshire's tone of voice, "Someone called an ambulance already. You did well."

Downstairs, the old woman was slumped facing an open doorway, pawing at her chest as her leg bled out. Triela's glove gripped her shoulder.

"Stay with us! You're going to be alright."

"_Confiteor Deo omnipotenti..." _the smallest whisper, "_Qui peccavi..._ohhh_...mea culpa, mea cupla, mea maxima culpa...__orare__ pro me_." Her murky eyes fixed on Triela's big shaking blues.

"You're really going to be okay..." The woman was shifted away from Triela, who stared after her smeared face, as paramedics took charge of her.

Once the civilian casualty had been tied down and stretchered out, some more Section 2 men who had been keeping other bystanders inside their apartments reappeared. Hilshire emerged as well–Triela coughed, and got to her feet in a composed manner.

The SWA team was unhurt. After searching the two dead Padanians (who they'd pursued from the scene of a botched shooting attack), the team could only hang around the lobby downstairs, waiting for their mortuary service to remove the corpses.

Triela realised that a young Section 2 man, holding his H&K MP5 awkwardly, was staring at her. She silently demanded an explanation with her return stare.

"_Signorina_...I'm sorry. I thought you girls didn't feel, but then I saw you with that old lady..." He trailed off, blinking. The pointless death had obviously shaken him up.

"I don't know if I feel, honestly." Triela didn't turn her head, "I don't feel fear, or pity, at death–I don't know if it's something to want, in this job."

"You know right from wrong." Hilshire glared at the young Section 2 man, "That's all that a pure soul needs."

"Pure soul–ugh, you've been reading trash novels again. I'm going to wait outside." Triela strode away from Hilshire, flicking her collar over her burning cheeks.

* * *

Soldiers can't afford to believe in coincidence. There was a reason the SWA, established see if God's work could be improved on, kept a chapel on its grounds, and a reason why Triela and her roommate were there.

"Do you want to go to heaven?" Claes looked up at Triela from her book, but didn't reply. "We should give it some thought, right? Angelica should be there; she tried so hard at her job." Triela's finger moved to the bottom of the roll of the deceased, "Suicide's a mortal sin, right? So Ange, who had as happy an end as a girl could get in this job, lives forever as a happy angel. Elsa suffered so much it broke her; then she gets tortured forever in a bottomless pit. Doesn't seem fair."

"Heaven and hell are probably part of this world. The idea makes people like _Signor_ Jean quite easy to understand."

"Okay, Jean is a victim, but not the same way as Hilshire. He was pulled into this place, as if it meant nothing that every choice he made was right! I'm no judge, but he's the only pure soul there is. I'd kill–I think I could even torture–just so he would never have to."

"If Hilshire let you to go to hell for his sake, where would he be?"

"Oh, shut up." Triela looked narrowly at the altar, "That old lady was obviously kind, probably confessed every day. I can't imagine she'd done anything very wrong–but she died in a crossfire, begging God for forgiveness"

Claes sniffed, "'we make an idol of our fear, and call it God.'"

"You don't mean us? We're barely afraid of death anymore."

"It's the script of _The Seventh Seal_. The knight isn't afraid of death, he's afraid of God not existing. Of being completely alone forever." A sudden shiver touched Triela's back.

"I understand. If me and Hilshire are together anywhere...ugh, it's so corny, but I can't imagine that would be be hell."

"I hear you yelled at Hilshire six times last week. For getting blood on your best shirt, for–"

"One more smart comment and you'll regret it, missy." Triela pushed the church doors out into a star-filled evening, "We're both idiots, then, with heaps of problems. But what's the use if we pray, and kowtow to God as well as the Agency? We'll keep sinning; we're never going to change."

"See you in hell then." Claes dodged the thrown hymnbook, and settled behind a pew to read it, as Triela walked away.

* * *

"Do you believe in God, Mario?"

"Uh, what?"

"Serious question." Sat on a bench, Triela tapped her phone like an idle cat.

Mario Bossi grumbled softly at the other end of the line. He'd always thought it a question only asked by, or to, the soon-to-be-dead. But Triela _was_ sixteen. After telling her about Amersterdam, he owed her all the answer she needed.

"Basically, I'm an ex-Roman Catholic ex-human trafficker. After what I've seen and done, I can't believe God has any interest in the world, or listens to anyone's prayers."

"Why did you help to rescue me, Mario? Did it...let you cut away the past? I'm sorry, but I'm sure you've changed since then."

"I thought changed after Mimi was born. But sometimes, I think–that's just circumstances. There was a reason I couldn't stand to do that bloody job anymore, so I changed what I did. But I still feel like a villain; I don't feel redeemed. I deafened myself to the girls who weren't saved, and I can't bear to remember them now. I can't believe–"

"You said 'can't' again, Mario. Don't you want to believe there's a God who forgives?" The phone was silent, "And being forgiven would be worthless if he couldn't change you as well."

"Don't worry about an old man like me. You wouldn't be talking like this if there wasn't something eating you. Sorry–"

"_You_ don't worry, Mario–and you won't be an old man for twenty years at least. Thanks for listening to me. It means a lot."

Triela had seen a light go on in a certain office. He would be alone in the circle of lamplight, back to the distant stars in the window. Writing and reading about her.

There were things she didn't want to talk about; but she would. She said goodnight to Mario, and marched through the agency.

* * *

"Triela? What are you about so late for–?"

"Do you hate God, Hilshire? Since you were put into this life."

"I chose this life, not God. I told you, I've never regretted it."

"So self-centred. What about the scum He lets live in the world? The terrorists...and child traffickers? Didn't...you save me from that cellar, and give me a new life and clean mind because you wanted to show God how to do his job?"

"The life we gave you..."

"I know, it's not perfect. But I'm thankful to you, (how could you imagine I wasn't?) and to Rachelle...and I'm sorry. I know, it's stupid to say it when you've forgiven me, I know it's stupider to be sorry for being me, and not a doctor or student or lawyer. But–but from the moment death came into the life you gave me, I've been hurting you, and if I could be someone that didn't hurt you, I would, and I'm sorry! And I don't want you to lose hope in the world and say crap like 'my social skills suck, this is the only life I could have', or else I'll have to save you right now–wha...?"

Triela's brain suddenly reengaged. She was leaning over Hilshire's desk, as its owner leaned back (perhaps not as far as he might), looking rather scared. Triela's lips were very close to Hilshire's. She suddenly felt rather scared herself.

"I think you don't believe you saved me." She suddenly whispered, "I'm going to prove to you that I'm truly saved."

"A lot of people saved you." Hilshire's voice was throaty with awkwardness "And I can see right now that you're all there." Triela felt his dark eyes over her brow, and stepped back, straightening her skirt. "I'll see you for the stakeout assignment tomorrow. Get some sleep." He added, glancing down to sort the papers Triela had displaced.

"It's a date. Tch, that was out of character, wasn't it...?"

"Not at all. Ah...according to somebody, you can do, believe, or work at anything, and it doesn't change who you are. Your soul, I guess...sorry, I got all that from a book your roommate lent me."

"I guessed. Thanks anyway."

"She lent me a few books actually, I can't imagine why."

Triela regarded the small pile of romance novels, smiled bravely, and set off to have a little chat with Claes about inappropriate reading material. She glanced from a window at the little chapel, with the man nailed up above the roof as if on an operating table. Her smile was grateful, embarrassed, and maybe a bit little expectant.


	2. Her problem

_A/N: A modest continuation of the original Mea Culpa story. The ending forms a minor spoiler for recent chapters of the manga. Italics indicate the hypothetical scenarios Triela and Claes dream up_

* * *

"Claes..."

"Yes, Triela? Have you been thinking again?"

"I _know_; too much since that old woman last month. And seeing Mimi and Mario in Naples. It's stupid, but I can't stop feeling uneasy..."

"Maybe that isn't stupid." Claes eyes were calm behind her glasses, "You tried to help Mario and Hilshire with their burdens, but didn't do anything for your own."

Triela rolled over in bed, screwing up the sheet with one hand. The storm battering at the windows felt like an invisible siege; there were no missions, and Claes was finding more struggle than enjoyment in _Finnegan's Wake_. It was a day for asking dangerous questions.

"My burden? The Conditioning's supposed to take care of guilt. There's nothing I can complain about. Nothing's happened to me I can't bear, and I'm not going to wail 'Oolala' about the place because of anything I've done to other people."

You always take responsibility." Claes' glasses shone like tears, "Even though you're not free."

"Bit of a _Zen_, isn't it? In Naples, when I tried to leave Hilshire...I had to choose to stay with him my own self, because otherwise the Conditioning would have chosen for me. I can stand not being free, for him...but it's always there. Overshadowing my proudest moments; like that ghost in _Macbeth_."

"Triela...being restricted is protection, as well." Knowing how useless her words were, Claes struggled to keep her voice offhand, "To the degree you're not free, you can't be blamed. Even the handlers can say they're not responsible for everything, and everyone–"

"No. I'm not free, but I'm not a robot. It's me that screws up, lets comrades get hurt and stole Hilshire's life–no arguments, he and Miss Rachelle would have the life they were meant to live if they'd never met me. It has to be me that failed it the past, every time. That's the only way I can chose to complete the missions, protect everyone, and do all I can for Hilshire now. Choice and responsibility; without them, I might as well be dead." Triela heard a sniff from the top bunk. Moving like a blonde puma, she scrambled up to Claes' side. "I'm sorry–"

"No, it's okay. Even if my days are rather less exciting than yours, I have choices, and responsibility. I certainly don't feel dead." Claes smiled coolly as she rubbed her eyes, "I just thoughts for a second you were unusually...charismatic."

"Really?" Triela smiled back. She sat down beside her friend, somehow unmotivated to return to her own bunk.

"Anyway, you've just confessed to carrying a bit more around than you want to show."

"You got me; I'm not perfect. I've got about a hundred regrets. When I think about how Rachelle died to save me, I feel like I've sinned just by clinging to life, Claes. Nothing I can do about it, though."

"No, but most of the other girls still try to justify themselves. The handlers as well."

* * *

_The fact was that Henrietta looked up at the stars for a moment, picked out Orion, and smiled at her own thoughts. The moment or method the target used to escape the flat was never ascertained, and when the second observation team saw him running, Jose didn't succeed in keeping frustration from his voice._

"_...Henrietta, didn't you see anything? Get–"_

_Outstripping the rest of the team within seconds, Henrietta pursued. Whatever happened, she had failed Jose. The target's hoarse breath reached her ears, as her feet pattered over alleys and steps in unending succession. She had to get, get, get even if nothing would ever be changed by it. She was one girl, unworthy of even her own dreams. Jose was only getting further from her as she ran._

_Throwing herself around a corner, her thoughts were smashed. Henrietta dimly felt her legs move more slowly and heard a scream before she collapsed against the target. When Jose and the support team caught up, the man was still staring at the girl he'd shot in the head, whimpering gently._

_Henrietta knew Jose was angry with her, but he said nothing. When he still got her the new perfume he'd promised, forcing himself to smile with real love, Henrietta almost wished the bullet had hurt her more badly. His worry and her sadness would be even worse, but the wonderful sense of being pitied would be even better._

* * *

"Ugh; true love is scary."

"Certainly better to keep love casual." Claes fluttered her eyelashed at Triela.

"What a line! I thought this was supposed to be an intelligent moral discussion!"

"Maybe intelligence can be quite lovable."

"Anyway, what about Rico? Miss Sunshine never seems to get hung up about anything."

"Depends if she realises what she's missing by staying a child forever. As for what Jean's missing–he definitely knows."

* * *

_Five Padanians. Enough explosives in their hideout to turn the building to gravel. No clear shots through the windows. And as Rico punched the fire-escape door open, the guard behind it shot her in the chest. Like a dying wasp, she put a bullet in his gut before falling back_

_Jean glanced at her round-mouthed face with a soldier's total analysis. Then he rushed past, into the building, before she hit the floor._

_One man in the hall went down with a shattered forehead. Jean kicked the flat's door into another thug's gun hand as he fired. Shot him, before splashing the fourth man's brains over a poster of Rodin's _crucifixion_, calm as if shooting paper targets. The fifth Padanian scrabbled for a remote and pressed it, before bullets punched through his skull and sternum. If a body hadn't fallen on the wire trailing between a half-assembled bomb and its trigger, Jean, Rico and anyone else in the building would've been annihilated in the same instant._

_Jean breathed out, as if relieved from a burden, before his mouth resumed its hard, dissatisfied line. __He removed his CZ275's magazine. In the same moment, a dark woman fell out of the room's wardrobe, snatched a handgun from the floor, and had almost aimed it at Jean when Rico shot her twice._

_Smiling, the blonde cyborg supported herself on the doorframe. Her handler regarded her coolly._

"_This doesn't excuse your blunder during the entry. However, you did well to get up here with an injury like that."_

_Rico blinked, as blood dribbled from her mouth. Her expression seemed to innocently inquire what other thing she might possibly have done. Jean's expression twitched; Rico blushed as he wiped her mouth clean._

"_I'd better get you back to the Agency. You're my precious tool of vengeance, Rico. In fact, I believe I value your life exactly as much as my own."_

* * *

"No. Relationships don't work like that."

"Isn't it right for those two?"

"It works, but it's not normal. I know everything the Agency does is necessary, and the conditioning makes that the same as right. Our world works, because we support each other. But I know most of the world is people like Roberta, the Prosecutor we protected, and Mimi. People who don't ask their loved ones to kill for them. Normal people; that has to be the real world, not here."

"You sound like a Gnostic. They were a cult who believed the visible world to be an illusion, created by the imperfect false God of the regular church."

"Sounds about right, but you don't need God in there. Imperfect false humans make all the world's problems."

"They made us, anyway," Claes rolled over, staring at the ceiling, "Gnosticism might have been designed for cyborgs; we know for a fact that we and our world were created by an imperfect human in the place of God."

"What solution did the Gnostics have then?" Triela was interested, despite herself. "How did they deal with their own imperfection?"

"I recall that they felt sin to be a matter of ignorance rather than moral fault," Claes absently fiddled with her glasses, as if straining to recall a voice long forgotten, "Of course you won't agree with that. Their program was meditation to achieve self-knowledge."

"I think I know myself better than anyone in the Agency but Hilshire. I wouldn't say it's made me happier. I've tried to do keep doing the right thing, like Hilshire and Mario...but I still don't feel I'm a good person."

"Certainly. To feel forgiven, you have to acknowledge your inadequacy," Claes stared at the ceiling mournfully, "Then go and ask for it from someone else. Whoever that is."

"No matter how much we argue, Hilshire wouldn't admit I'd done anything unforgivable; same goes for me to him. We rely on each other too much to really acknowledge each other's faults. It's like asking the blind to lead the blind."

"If everyone is blind, does it matter which way they go?" Claes voice was dark. Triela touched her cheek.

"You mean; if there's no hope, is it okay to despair?" After a moment Triela hopped down from the bunk, "Lighten up girl. Things aren't that bad."

As if any conclusion had been reached that made it easier to go on living in the way that seemed right, Triela started carefully preparing her _Macbeth _essay. Claes put her headphones in and closed her eyes.

* * *

"Very good. You've deepened your understanding of the characters." Hilshire handed Triela's essay on _Macbeth_ back to her across his overburdened desk.

"Thank you, Sir. I suppose getting into people's heads is actually useful in this work."

"I've been trying to show a different viewpoint from that world, Triela. I know you find a lot of Literature boring, but I don't know...maybe a modern writer...?"

"No; it was a good idea, I enjoyed it. 'Killer queen maddened by guilt', so quite a new perspective. At least _I_ don't have all that pointless-looking paperwork."

"Pointless, but unavoidable," Hilshire grimaced, "I think how many things matter more in life, and I'm buried before I know it."

"I'll help you. How much needs filling out right away?"

"But you've got your own reports," Hilshire protested, "Your homework on surveillance as well..."

"I'll do that later. It looks like you can't afford to say no." Hilshire lapsed into silence, as Triela leant against the edge of his desk and pulled a form off a stack, "Besides, this is almost the only way to relax with you, if the candlelit diner is still off the cards." The pale handler spluttered and flushed. "Joke. I just want to do something unnecessary for you."

"I appreciate it, Triela." There was a lot more in there than thanks for help with a chore. Triela knew Hilshire thought that the necessary things she'd done for him obviously meant more. That made sense, but it wasn't enough. All the blood she could shed meant nothing compared to the life he'd given up to save her. She had treated his wound in Naples, though. For some reason, that stood out like the memory of a miracle, something her thoughts could touch only gently.

The office slowly darkened, as the fratello slogged through varied shades of red tape. When Hilshire's eyes lingered for longer than he intended on the nape of Triela's neck, she felt it. For a government assassin, she'd always thought his dark, fluid eyes were surprisingly innocent. They were his most absorbing feature...if she hadn't always been more self-possessed and sensible than Henrietta, she could have gone on about them for hours, and loved it.

Hilshire smiled without knowing why. As both their pens scratched around the operations of a death-squad, he and Triela stayed where they were, writing as light vanished from the horizon.

* * *

_The ringing tunnel thumped Triela's synthetic eardrum to breaking; cordite almost choked her in the narrow space. And that seemed strangely more immediate than the stumps where her legs had been; as her implants shut down, the little Triela felt was all pain._

"_God...if you're there..." Hauling herself back above mental waterline, Triela tightened either hand on her SIG and shotgun. "God...let me stay awake until the enemy in this base are dead." Her vision tilted and blurred, "Jesus...never asked you for anything before. This is the best I can do...die for everyone I love. Wasn't it the same for you?"_

_Triela banged her head against the access tunnel wall to clear it, gripped her weapons again. She pinned her eyes to the corner that Dante's men with anti-materiel rounds would be emerging from to kill her._

"_I'm sorry...couldn't do more. Couldn't give you more. I couldn't live. This is all I can do, Hilshire. I'm sorry."_

_The easy smile of a tiger hung on Triela's lips for a second. As a shadow darted from the corner, her shotgun ripped his head apart._


End file.
